Thanks, Linda, for posting this on Facebook!

Sometimes simply taking a bath is a major achievement. Not quite sure when I last bathed or showered – Friday, perhaps? I really can’t recall. Yesterday I actually exercised. Yes, that’s right, I exercised. Worked out with weights, used a…

I have survived (almost) another day. Heat makes me so cranky. Yes, I know, shocking that I could be crankier than I already am. (insert sarcastic tongue emoti here.) The maintenance guys were across the street most of the day hacking a six foot tall weed patch down with rusty machetes. I stood and watched with this morbid fascination, thinking, coool, Jason Vorhees has one of those only his is shinier…Then I got hit with the notion, “The way they are hacking away like that one of them is gonna machete off another’s hand.” Enter anxiety. Random, ridiculous, utterly maddening.

Sparked only by all the yard work going on around me, knowing if I didn’t get my yard mowed the landlord would be bitching at me or have his guys do it and charge me…I have one of those old push mowers that has the rotating blades when you push it forward. I am petrified of power mowers, the result of seeing my mom cut her ankle open with a push gas mower when I was ten. So with such a small yard, the old school mower suits me just fine. Unfortunately, someone (not naming any names, but I’m betting a KID) left a stray brown sock in the yard and the mower got caught on it. When I went to push it forward, it somehow wound up on my foot, the blade mashing my big toe and cutting my foot. yayyyyy. Takes a real klutz to manage that. Oh, well. One more scar for my arsenal of “oops, klutzy me” scars. Least I got the yard mowed, even if I had to take three breaks. The heat just does me in.

Aside from the lawn and a load of laundry, plus cooking two good meals my kid wanted no part of…I’ve done fuck all. It gets too warm, I get lethargic. My dad called ranting at me about how I need to get my outlet fix so I can plug in my air conditioner, blah blah, “My truck had one wire off last week and nearly caught on fire, you’re gonna burn the house down…” Pretty sure I’d have to plug something in for that, idiot. He has no grasp that I am already a paranoid worst case scenario person thanks to him and my mother instilling it in me. He has to make it worse even now. Family is a synonym for hell with me.

I had the weirdest panxiety attack today. It was precipitated by two incoming texts and it took me an hour for me to work beyond that paranoia and terror and paralysis and actually look at the phone.Fortunately it was just a tracfone promo and my bank alert but for an hour…I avoided it, damn near hyperventilating, jumping at every sound, convinced it would be another berating from R. Or worse, him once again expecting me to drop everything for his whims then making me out to be the evil bitch. I am becoming more convinced that toxic aspect of my life needs to go, car repairs be damned. To get so terrified of your own phone because you don’t know if you’re going to be criticized or ordered around…It’s mind boggling that the man has no concept of just how much havoc he has wreaked for me with his narcissism. In true form of that disorder, he wouldn’t care if he did have the self awareness to notice.

Once I faced those messages, recovered from my father’s gloom and doom, and ran into the dish for Spook’s anti biotic…I started to recover from the panxiety. I tried explaining it to the doctor and he looked at me like I’d sprouted a second head. PANXIETY IS A THING, dammit. That anxiety that boils up and over to the point of paranoia and sheer terror and paralyzes you so instead of making any move you do nothing but freeze like a deer in the headlights. I loathe that shit.

But it’s 8 pm, Spook and I are both bathed and in jammies, it’s cooling off, and I think I can consider this day a “survivable” success. My toe is cut and bruised, which just proves…I’d be dead if I had a power mower. Maintenance guys definitely want to keep he machetes away from me. Though the only person I’d likely hurt is myself. They need to research clumsiness as a genetic trait.

On a side note…Thank you to everyone for their supportive comments, making me smile, reminding me I’m not alone, and reblogging when my words strike a chord. It is appreciated. Bedazzled sporks for everyone. Unless you want pink, those are all for Sass.